For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

I did a couple fun interviews last week that I’ve embedded below. The first was an interview of me on BakeSpace about losing weight eating what you love. The second was interview with friend and filmmaker Graham Hancock, one of the first readers of Foodist who has already lost 35 pounds.

This week around the internets we learn how to break the takeout addiction, burn more calories while eating less, and five of my secret ingredients on Oprah.com.

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

•  5 Healthy and Cheap Ingredients to Put in Your Shopping Cart <<Tips from yours truly. I hope you’ll find these useful and unexpected (Oprah)
• I’ll have to exercise for HOW LONG to work that off? <<Instead of counting calories, ask yourself how long you’ll have to workout to make up for it. It’ll make you think again. (LA Times)
• How I Broke My Addiction to Takeout and Started Cooking at Home <<I love these tips and think they could work for anyone. (Lifehacker)
• How to Exercise, and Not Eat More <<Once again we see that exercise can make you eat more, while NEAT activities like walking do not. (Wall Street Journal)
• What’s bugging your meat? Shit and antibiotics, probably <<Need more motivation to skip the industrial meat? This should do it. (Grist)
• Why We Eat Whatever’s In Front of Us <<More tips fore eating less without noticing. (Lifehacker)
• The Power of Cocoa Polyphenols Against Neurodegenerative Diseases <<Couldn’t help but share this one. Hooray for chocolate! (ScienceDaily)
• Set a goal but didn’t follow through? Tips to resetting habits <<Excellent advice for improving habits, which is the only way to achieve your long-term health goals. (LA Times)
• Doctor’s Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day <<Meditation helps with much more than mindful eating, and people are starting to notice. (Wall Street Journal)
• Buttermilk Asparagus Salad Recipe <<A simple, seasonal and delicious looking dish from Heidi Swanson. (101 Cookbooks)

Photo by ashley rose,

Mindful eating has been the most difficult healthstyle habit for me to cultivate. By far.

Although I have developed several tactics to help me remember to slow down and pay attention to my food, it is usually the first thing to slip when stress and life get the better of me.

Humans, especially Americans, are notoriously susceptible to triggers in our surroundings that provoke overeating. Rather than paying attention to when we’re full or have eaten enough, we’re more likely to continue eating just because there is more food on the plate, the TV show we’re watching is still on, or because everyone else is still eating.

Dieters are even worse than most people in this department, since they have a long history of ignoring their internal satiety signals that tell them when they are and aren’t hungry.

When you eat mindlessly your environment wins and you’re more likely to overeat. You also appreciate your food less, since you aren’t focused on the sensory pleasures of eating. Cultivating mindful eating habits is therefore one of the most valuable tools in your foodist tool belt, because it helps you eat less while enjoying it more.

The benefits of practicing mindfulness are not limited to the realm of food. Cultivating mindful behaviors in your daily life has been shown to reduce stress, improve memory, and increase well-being overall.

When I noticed that wedding stress was taking a serious toll on me, I began relying heavily on what is known as 4-7-8 breathing to calm myself. I first learned about this practice in Dr. Andrew Weil’s book Spontaneous Happiness (a fabulous book, especially if you ever experience depression or other emotional disorders), and noticed that it had a tremendous positive effect on me, particularly when I was experiencing bouts of anxiety.

4-7-8 breathing is a short exercise that helps quiet the mind. To begin, lay down or sit in a chair with a straight back and close your eyes. Place the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, just above your front teeth. Exhale through your mouth while making a blowing noise. Close your mouth and inhale through the nose for a count of four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale for eight seconds. Do this four times, then slowly open your eyes. Here’s a nice video demo if you want to check it out.

In the months leading up to the wedding I would use 4-7-8 breaths one to three times per day to reduce stress, and the experience became so pleasant and rewarding to me that I’ve continued it even after the actual wedding date. One of the benefits I’ve noticed is that if my 4-7-8 breaths come shortly before a meal (which is often, since it is usually the first time during the day when I sit in a chair that isn’t behind a screen), then remembering to chew thoroughly and eat mindfully is much, much easier.

Remembering to eat mindfully can be very difficult. If you’re being mindless, how are you supposed to remember to be more mindful? If you remember to be mindful, aren’t you being mindful already? It can be tricky, so 4-7-8 breathing is an incredibly valuable tool to help build the habit. I think it works because the reward for calming the mind with breaths is stronger than simply eating slowly, which feels difficult in practice. You also get the additional benefits of less stress and more focus. Everyone is a winner.

Have you found breathing exercises can help you eat more mindfully? 

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week mindful eating reduces future eating, fish oil supplements may negate real fish benefits and spray paint becomes edible, or something.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• Food memories may aid weight loss, researchers say <<Cool new research suggests that mindfulness doesn’t just help you eat less in the moment, but can also help you remember what you ate better so that you eat less in the future. Got that? (LA Times)
• Why Fish Is Better Than Supplements: Omega-3s from Fish Vs. Fish Oil Pills Better at Maintaining Blood Pressure in Mouse Model <<This is fascinating research. It doesn’t just show that natural omega-3s are better, but that the version of DHA in most supplements actually antagonizes the benefits of the natural form. I’m not recommending everyone toss their supplements just yet, but keep an eye on this research and choose natural sources of nutrition whenever possible. (ScienceDaily)
• Edible Spray Paint Gives Food A Futuristic Feel <<BS of the week. Tell me these pictures of metallic blue strawberries don’t make you gag. WTF is wrong with people?? (Huffington Post)
• Brain Pathway Triggering Impulsive Eating Identified <<Eating for pleasure, it’s not just for foodists anymore! Next time someone calls you an elitist for caring about how food tastes, tell them that even maggots do it so it’s totally natural. (ScienceDaily)
• Salty Diet Might Help Trigger MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis <<New research suggests excessive salt (read: excessive processed foods) increases risk of autoimmune disorders. It’ll be interesting to see how this line research turns out. (Medline)
• Make Perfect Poached Eggs with a Mesh Strainer <<Whenever I’ve used someones “trick” to make perfect poached eggs, they still never turn out quite right. This, however, looks very promising. (Lifehacker)
• Food Allergy Advice for Kids: Don’t Delay Peanuts, Eggs <<Speaking of eggs, if your kids are allergic to them it could be because you waited too long to introduce them as babies. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Shelf Life of Food <<Want a super duper handy chart showing you how long you can keep different foods in your kitchen? Of course you do. (Visual.ly)
• Kimchi Omelet <<I eat kimchi with eggs at least once or twice a week. Here’s a slightly more elegant version, courtesy of David Lebovitz and Jaden Hair.

 What inspired you this week?

Photo by Orin Zebest

Whenever anyone tells me they eat healthy but still can’t lose weight, I ask them if they practice mindful eating. Most people just stare back at me blankly, wondering what on earth I’m talking about and whether there’s a chance I’ve traded in my lab coat for some new age crystals and incense.

No, I’m not a hippy. Far from it in fact. But I do think that just about everyone could benefit from adopting some principles of the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, particularly when it comes to your eating habits.

There is a wealth of scientific data that eating quickly, not chewing thoroughly and not paying attention to what and how much you’re eating can result in substantial overeating—and even healthy foods can cause you to gain weight if you eat enough of them. Though sometimes this mindlessness can be used in your favor, more often than not you’ll be lulled into a false sense of security and eat more than you intend.

The good news is that these mindless habits can be overcome with practice. The bad news is that like most bad habits, it is difficult to change your behavior without concerted effort. But if you’re committed to the practice, mindfulness does become easier and you’ll learn to enjoy your food more and naturally eat less.

Keep in mind as you’re reading through this list that different things work for different people, and some of these will be much easier for you than others. My goal is to present you with as many options as possible that have worked for myself or others so that you can pick and choose those that fit best with your habits and lifestyle.

9 Simple Tricks To Eat More Mindfully

1. Chew 25 times

Chewing is probably the simplest and most effective way develop the habit of eating mindfully. There used to be an entire dieting movement, led by the late Horace Fletcher, based on the idea that chewing more helped you eat less. Though Fletcher took this idea a little far (and was arguably a little crazy), there is reliable scientific data that extra chewing results in less overall food intake.

I recommend 25 chews per bite here, but likely anything over 20 chews will provide a benefit. The most important part is that you choose a number and count your chews until you reach it. The number itself is less consequential.

To help myself remember to chew thoroughly I’ve used iPhone apps such as Reminders! to ping me a few minutes before my usual mealtimes with a simple Chew 25 Times reminder.

2. Feed yourself with your non-dominant hand

Making things more difficult is a great way to force yourself to pay attention to what you’re doing. One simple way to do this is to force yourself to eat with your non-dominant hand, which for 90% of us is our left hand. It might be too much to do this for every meal, but trying it for breakfast and snacks is a good place to start.

Be careful though, if you get too good at it you can slip back into your mindless habits.

3. Eat every thing with chopsticks for a week

Even if you grew up with chopsticks as your primary utensil, you’ve probably never used them to eat a sandwich or a bag of chips.

I once heard a story about a local tech company that asked a bunch of their employees to use chopsticks exclusively for a week as a mindfulness exercise. Although weight loss was not the goal, everyone in the office lost weight and several reported life changing realizations as a result of the project.

One person dropped his morning bagel habit when he realized that the chopsticks prevented him from experiencing the part of the ritual that he enjoyed the most. Apparently the taste of the bagel was not as appealing as the act of ripping it apart with his hands. Once he realized that actually eating the bagel wasn’t important to him he decided to give it up.

4. Put your fork down between each bite

Putting your fork down between bites of food is an excellent complement to the chewing habit. The act of setting your fork down forces you to focus on chewing your food rather than letting yourself mindlessly pick at your plate for your next bite. It also encourages you to slow down and attend more to the taste of your food, instead of just shoveling it down your throat as quickly as possible.

5. Take your first bite with your eyes closed

I once went to a restaurant where the entire dining experience, including being seated at our table, occurred in the pitch dark. The idea was to focus exclusively on the experience of eating, without the distraction of vision. Unfortunately the food at this restaurant was terrible, and focusing on it only made this point more obvious. But it was a good lesson, and I was certainly not tempted to overeat as a result.

While eating all of your meals in the dark, or even with your eyes closed, is not very practical, taking the time to taste your first bite with your full attention can help you eat the rest of your meal more mindfully. Focus on all the flavors in your mouth and how they interact, as well as the smells and textures. This will help you both appreciate your food and eat more slowly.

6. Try to identify every ingredient in your meal

Trying to taste and identify all the different ingredients in your meal is another great way to focus on the present moment and eat more mindfully. This is particularly fun at restaurants, when you didn’t make the food yourself. An added bonus of this technique is it may also help you become more creative in the kitchen.

7. Put your food on a plate

It may sound obvious, but eating out of a bag is not a very mindful practice. Get in the habit of placing even small snacks and desserts on a plate before you eat them. This will force you to acknowledge exactly what and how much you will be eating.

8. Sit at a table

Once your food is on a plate, you may as well go the extra mile to sit at a table. Formalizing your dining experience can help draw your attention to your food and your eating habits.

9. Eat in Silence

Put away your phone, turn off the TV, hide your kids, hide your wife. Any sensation that you experience outside of taste and smell while you’re eating can distract you and make mindful eating more difficult.

While going through an entire meal in pure silence may be a bit much for most of us, designating the first 3-5 minutes of a meal for quiet and mindful practice can be an effective strategy.

What are your tricks for eating more mindfully?

Photo by Tomas Sobek

There are thousands of ways to fail at meeting your health and weight loss goals, but some are so reliable you may as well give up before you start.

If your plan includes any of the following strategies, you may want to reevaluate your tactics.

9 Surefire Ways To Sabotage Your Weight Loss

1. Rely on willpower

Even if you’re one of those people with an iron will, no one can hold out forever. Willpower is notoriously unreliable, and if you’re ever sleepy, hungry, tipsy, grumpy, sad, happy, lazy or all of the above, your weakness will eventually win.

2. Forget the difference between temporary and permanent

Is your goal to fit into a size 4? Almost anyone can get there if they follow a strict enough diet and workout regimen for a set amount of time—the question is, how long do you want to stay there? If your goals are intended to be permanent, your dietary and fitness modifications need to be as well.

3. Start a really hard workout regimen

Having someone kick your ass in boot camp may sound like what you need to get in shape, but how long do you really think you will subject yourself to pain and suffering before you give up on exercise completely? Most people don’t last 2 months.

4. Never learn to eat mindfully

One of the biggest differences between the US and less obese cultures (e.g. France) is our complete and utter lack of food culture. In healthier cultures, meal time is an important event of people gathering to share good food and stories from the day. And with these habits come standards for portion sizes, eating speed and nutritional balance.

Sadly, it’s unlikely the US will suddenly establish a healthy food culture in time to help the majority of the population. But you can get a lot of the benefits yourself by learning to eat mindfully. Mindful eating helps you slow down, savor your food and appreciate each bite. For these reasons it is incredibly effective at helping with portion control–but without any feelings of deprivation.

In our culture, mindful eating is very difficult and takes some practice. It’s hard to slow down when your friends are wolfing down food by the handful. But it is possible. Practice when you’re alone and it will be easier when you’re with friends.

5. Ignore how much you miss your favorite foods

Love ice cream? Can you go your entire life without it? What about 6 months? Or do you just plan to hold out as long as you can before the next inevitable binge? Cold turkey isn’t necessary if you develop a healthy relationship with your favorite treats.

6. Assume that what worked for someone else will work for you

Have a friend who lost a ton of weight on the Atkins diet? Me too. I also have friends who lost weight doing the master cleanse or going vegan. Typically only the ones who make permanent habit changes can maintain it, so a plan that works for someone else will only work for you if you enjoy it and can incorporate it into your life. Everyone is different.

7. Dramatically restrict your eating

Starving is not fun. Nor are cravings. Nor is malnutrition. Limiting your calories to unrealistic lows is a great way to begin the cycle of yo-yo dieting that we all know and love. Enjoy!

8. Don’t find deeper purpose in what and why you eat

This one may sound a bit esoteric, but bear with me. If your goals are to build healthy habits (which they should be), the people who have the most success are those that want to achieve more than a change in their appearance. Vegans believe so deeply that harming animals is wrong that they never stray from their diets. Locavores want to know and trace the source of all their foods. For some people, being told you will die if you do not change your habits is enough.

For myself, it’s good to know that my habits are healthy and effective, but I’ve come to understand that how I eat is a way of life that has deeper political, philosophical and environmental impact than I ever imagined. It’s also super tasty. For inspiration, check out the film Food, Inc. or read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. You won’t regret it.

9. Pick a diet that is super inconvenient

We all have our limits on how far we’ll go to stick to an eating plan. Be sure to know yours. If you’re too busy (or have too many taste buds) to eat a specific combination of foods every 3 hours–I know I couldn’t–then don’t pretend like you can. Pick dietary changes you can handle, the little things do add up if you can maintain them for the long haul.

Have you lost weight and kept it off for years? Tell us how.

Originally published January 19, 2011.